Splunk MINT Overview

About Splunk MINT data collection

The Splunk MINT SDKs collect data from mobile apps and then send that data to Splunk Enterprise by using the MINT Data Collector or the HTTP Event Collector:

MINT Data Collector

The MINT Data Collector is a cloud service that is operated by Splunk. The MINT Data Collector forwards mobile app data to Splunk MINT Management Console and Splunk Enterprise, then deletes the raw data. The MINT Management Console stores aggregated summaries about the performance of mobile apps for 7 days, and crash reports for 90 days. For more, see How do I use MINT Data Collector?.

HTTP Event Collector (HEC)

HEC enables you to send data over HTTP or HTTPS directly to Splunk Enterprise 6.4 and later from your mobile apps. When using HEC to send data to MINT, mobile app data does not appear in MINT Management Console or the Splunk MINT App. However, you can use the End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM) module for Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI).

Note iOS crash reports are not symbolicated when you use HEC to send data to MINT.

How does the MINT Data Collector work?

The MINT Data Collector relies on a single-tenant service that is hosted in Amazon Web Services (AWS). Every customer has a dedicated environment that is provisioned to meet the strictest enterprise security requirements. Dedicated environments ensure that data is never mixed with data from another customers, assuring that access to data is strictly limited to provisioned users.

The MINT Data Collector uses highly secure, state-of-the-art technologies that are used by many telecommunication and MNO providers. The lack of traditional web technology makes the MINT Data Collector less prone to common security attacks such as SQL injections.

Splunk MINT is designed to scale such that one customer’s behavior has no impact on other customers, which is essential to enterprises using MINT as a mission-critical service.

How do I use MINT Data Collector?

To send data from mobile apps to MINT Management Console and Splunk Enterprise using the MINT Data Collector:

Log in to Splunk MINT Management Console and create a project for one variation of your mobile app (a platform and release stage, such as Android/Testing, or iOS/Release). You'll get an API key and a line of code to add for that particular platform—copy it to your clipboard:

Integrate MINT into your mobile apps.

Paste the line of code that contains your API key into your mobile app code to integrate MINT:

When you start using your mobile apps, they will begin to send data to the Splunk MINT Data Collector. Go back to MINT Management Console and open your mobile app projects. You'll start to see data appear in your dashboards in minutes.

Once your MINT data is indexed in Splunk Enterprise, you can view your data in different ways:

Run searches directly in Splunk Enterprise using the Search & Reporting app.

Use the Splunk MINT App, which provides a data model and a set of dashboards that display network performance, location, transactions, and usage. For details, see About the Splunk MINT App in the Splunk MINT App User Guide.

Use the End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM) module for Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), which monitors metrics related to the end-user experience and correlates end-user performance issues such as page load time, page rendering time, error rates, and AJAX latency. For details, see About the End User Experience Monitoring Module in the Splunk IT Service Intelligence Modules manual.

How do I use HTTP Event Collector with MINT?

The HTTP Event Collector (HEC) is a fast way to send data directly from your mobile apps to Splunk Enterprise.

Splunk Enterprise 6.4 or later is required to use HEC with MINT.

Note Because HEC does not use MINT cloud services such as the MINT Symbolicator, iOS crash reports from HEC will not be symbolicated in Splunk Enterprise (memory addresses will not be replaced with human-readable function names or line numbers). However, crash reporting is built into Xcode if you want to use a crash reporting feature.

To send data from mobile apps to Splunk Enterprise using HEC:

1. Get a HEC token

In Splunk Web, go to Settings > Data inputs.

Under Local Inputs, click HTTP Event Collector.

If a warning icon is displayed next to Global Settings, you must enable tokens: click Global Settings, click Enabled for All Tokens, then click Save.

Initialize the SDK in your mobile app projects using the HEC token you created above, and the HEC URL for the MINT endpoint. This URL takes the form "https://host:mPort/services/collector/mint", where host is the hostname of your Splunk Enterprise instance, and mPort is the port you defined in the Global Settings of the HTTP Event Collector data input, such as "8088". For more, see the services/collector/mint endpoint in the REST API Reference Manual.

Once your MINT data is indexed in Splunk Enterprise, you can view your data in different ways:

Run searches directly in Splunk Enterprise using the Search & Reporting app.

Use the End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM) module for Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), which monitors metrics related to the end-user experience and correlates end-user performance issues such as page load time, page rendering time, error rates, and AJAX latency. This module requires the Splunk MINT Add-on. For details, see About the Splunk MINT Add-on in the Splunk MINT Add-on User Guide manual, and About the End User Experience Monitoring Module in the Splunk IT Service Intelligence Modules manual.

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